beautybeast
by Loki8
Summary: Dilandau remembers a dark haired girl with a raven tattoo, and Gatti begins to hear things. There will be a plot, and bowlcut Chesta if I like it enough andor if I get positive reviews. Maybe.


beauty:beast

memories in the rain: a raven in flight

The warbling of birds. It's irritating. And repetitive. He can't understand why some people find it beautiful.

He hears the voices only in his dreams. In the tangible world, the rain will be pattering on glass, and reflecting the blazing gold lights of the Vione. The fortress will become an obsidian star in the night sky. He will stand, alone, in the heavens.

A click clack of boot on metal.

An ash-haired boy's breathing.

Memories of a girl with ebony hair, a raven-in-flight forever buried in smooth pale skin that he used to trace as he stroked the contours of her back, and felt her spine and shoulder blades pressing against his hand, underneath that deceptively innocent skin. His breathing is shallow. She breathes, deeply and huskily, she pants to catch her breath and kisses the ground with lips that remind him of winter battlefields, hot steaming blood on the cold icy snow. She breathes, and her breath reaches his ear, and he feels his heart, stomach, lungs, pancreatic juices shiver and he presses harder and a small "hah" sound rushes past her lips, wrapped in delight.

She laughs, a low, animal chuckle that dyes excitement in his very bones, and opens her eyes that reflect back at him like emerald leaves shining with dew under a summer sun. She glitters under his gaze.

She whispers in his heart.

Her voice echoes for eternity in his mind.

_I am leaving_, it says. _I am leaving you at dawn. And you must leave me._

He remembers wanting to say no, or to beg her to utter those three words that mean nothing yet everything to everyone.

I. love. you.

But though he is yet a boy, he has enough pride to scorn those trite words he hears insincerely screamed throughout every alley, by liars and thieves and murderers. And even were he to beg, she would not say them, because she knows that he knows what is in her heart. And he does.

Still, he cannot help but long for something concrete. She must be thinking the same, as she parts her moist lips again.

_I'll miss you._

_I'll see you again,_ he says, and even though the words are confident, desperation is their mother. She offers a crooked smile and kisses his neck.

_Maybe. We'll see._

He decides that that's enough dreaming for now, and wakes himself. He shakes off the pain that pulsates through his body. He should remember to sleep in his bed, and not at his throne.

The ash-haired boy is still there. He cannot leave until he fulfills his task, but he does not have enough courage to wake his commander. So he waits.

"What is it, Gatti." His voice is soft. Dilandau stares at the ground, his head hung.

"Lord Folken requests your presence at the bridge, sir." Gatti is surprised, but now incompetent. He is curious about his commander's strange mood, but mostly, he is relieved.

"Ah. Yes. That. Very well." Dilandau sighs, and rises, and feels a rush of cold air to his head and finger and toes, and the old maniacal glee plays a tune in the recesses of his soul. He shakes off his dreams, and the raven-haired girl, and grins. His cheeks contract and pull the corners of his mouth back into a savage smile, and Gatti thinks for a moment that he is looking into the eyes of a wolf, that he is staring at a horrifying tunnel, a gaping red mouth lined with sharp white teeth that all have his reflection in them. But then he blinks, and there is nothing before him except a dangerous, androgynous young man with and fragile and cruel beauty and the shadow of a smirk on his face.

Gatti stares at his back as he walks slowly out of the room. His reflection is everywhere.

Click.

Clack.

He thinks he hears ravens in flight.

Far away, a young woman with green eyes and dark hair bites into a crimson apple that pales in comparison to her vivid lips and listens to a proposal. Halfway through, she frown at a fleeting thought that has nothing to do with the task on hand, and mentally berates herself for letting her mind wander. She listens, and nods, and assents, or demurs, and she is aware that every eye in the room is on her, this tall pale woman with the dramatic colouring, dressed all in black. The pass by her and whisper, and speculate on the meaning of the raven-in-flight tattooed upon her back.

Later, when she is finished with her dealings, she walks on the gray streets. A boy runs past her on the cobbled streets. He is tall and thin, and the dim, rainy light casts a gray aura on him, making his light hair shine silver. She almost reaches out to the boy, but she catches herself.

Instead, she stands in the rain even after the last of the light fades away, staring in the direction he ran.

Note: I haven't written stuff in forever, especially not fanfiction, ESPECIALLY not Escaflowne fanfiction.

Hm, anything else?

Oh yeah, I think I've finally come to terms with what a dorky name 'Dilandau' is.

Loki


End file.
